Scorpio Exclusive details released

Microsoft are ramping up Scoprio news ahead of E3 2017. They have given an exclusive agreement to one of their biggest critics, Digital Foundry, who are known for analysing performance (or lack of) in great detail.

Check out their report here

Whilst the raw specs may remind some of 2-3 year-old gaming PC's, mass produced consoles will always be more efficient in their design, use of system resources, and may attract better coding and Q&A. Since this console is a mid-cycle upgrade, designers have been able to tweak the new hardware to perform better with existing game engines, rather than rely on developers to make adaptations based on new hardware.

If you don't own any Xbox One console, are you now tempted by this elite offering? If you have the original or S variant, will you upgrade? Will you go all out and get a 4K HDR screen as well? Is the inclusion of a 4K BluRay player required these days or rendered moot by online streaming services? (Upscaled 1080p already looks amazing on my display).

Cons
- Any unique expansion devices (ala Kinect/PSVR) must take up a USB port on an older system or be exclusive to the upgraded one (which isn't really a con since PSVR won't work on PS3 and Kinect won't work on the original Xbox).
- Players who always want the best will no doubt be upgrading much more often (i.e. every 3 years instead of every 8).

With consoles now being x86 like PC this type of upgrade cycle is possible. Of course while PC's start off being more expensive, you typically only need upgrade one component (GPU) to improve performance and you save money with cheaper games on Steam and no monthly/annual multiplayer subscription.

The numbers that the Scorpio will do and the little tweaks and clever workings such as default 16x AF done at the system level, along with DirectX 12 being baked into the GPU, will make this perform better than what that 6 TF figure would make you imagine being possible in a PC scope. Doing Forza 6 at 4K resolution with a full grid, weather, and at Ultra settings with typical 70-90% usage before any optimisation is promising.

I was thinking about this again the other day... the only real shame is that MS think that 30FPS is fine, compared to reviews of recent PC hardware only suggesting items as 4K ready if, and only if, they can average over 60 in most titles. Obviously the GPU's that can do that cost more themselves than an entire Xbone, but I hope there's some option to crank up the effects for 1080p60 rendering. For driving games I would prefer that and just let the TV upscale to 4K.

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turboduck is a community that is dedicated to driving and racing games of all types on all platforms. Whether it's ticking off the miles/kilometres while exploring an open world, crashing and exploding everything in an insane balls-to-the-wall arcade racer, or nailing down every apex and trimming off every tenth possible in authentic sim-racing. It's all up for discussion as we enjoy the virtual cars, bikes, and everything else that these games offer. So join us, jump into the discussions, and don't think too much about why a 'duck' is our mascot. ;)